Classrooms are the places where most learning takes place. Keeping student attention is very important if teachers are to transfer their information. However the conditions in a classroom are not always conducive to maximum attention. Most classrooms have associated therewith a heating and a cooling system for providing some form of heating for the winter and cooling for the summer, both systems generally being part of a building HVAC System (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system). The condition of the heating and cooling systems varies greatly depending on age, maintenance, design and installation. In many cases the insides of the school buildings have been modified or changed but the HVAC system has been kept the same.
The efficiency and configuration of an HVAC system for a classroom is not usually monitored because there are typically no monitors in the room. HVAC systems are typically tuned for the system as a whole, i.e. for the entire building or a large zone within the building. A particular room within a building may vary widely from the tuned system. The room usually has a thermostat to control heat but that is about all. What devices that are found in a room are usually sensors that are part of 1he HVAC controls for the room. The HVAC controls send signals to the ductwork control components to mix air to supply the correct temperature and/or to the boiler to adjust the boiler water temperature and corresponding heat output. However conditions in a room are affected by more variables than just temperature.
When people are active in a room the conditions in that room can change considerably. It is not unusual for conditions to exist that cause children to become sleepy created by the CO2 rising when expelled by breathing, and a rise in temperature by a high set thermostat and radiant body heat. Such conditions can quickly destroy the optimum conditions for good predominance and learning and the teacher's moment passes. Because such conditions happen in real time it is hard for the teacher to see that such conditions that negatively impact learning are occurring, and even harder to know how to respond to them because there is no quantitative information in the room to which the teacher can refer.